Examples:
* I'm too old to learn how to surf
* My relationship with my child is too far gone to improve
* It's pointless for me to save for retirement at my age
* The environment is fucked no matter what I do
These are all time anxiety type dilemmas that real people get hung up on that have nothing to do with impressing the world or building the next big thing.
If we are completely present in the now and doing what feel rights. There is no room for all these negative thoughts.
It is the kind of swapping of cause and effect that many neurotypical people fall into when conversing with those who are suffering. All of the behaviors and habits you describe are largely the result of healthy mental states, not the cause (there can be feedback loops that make the distinction fuzzy, but those feedback loops are very fragile and require constant maintenance).
I'm sure its well intentioned, but it's just not going to be very useful advice.
If you're asking more personally, I identify with a lot of the same struggles as outlined in the article and here in the comments, but I stop short of feeling the excessive anxiety. Instead I'm just paralyzed by inaction and have low energy for pursuing any ambition.
I'm currently in the process of ruling out all other possible health factors first (ADHD, hormonal imbalances, sleep deficiencies, metabolic issues), but if those end up being exhausted I'll probably explore Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Training myself to have healthier mappings between emotions <-> thoughts <-> behaviors seems to me like the best approach. And then maybe I'll be capable of applying the sort of "just do what you feel like" advice you provided above.
I guess that's... normal? Most people don't have ambitions, they're just content with getting through life in a relatively painless way. The ambitious people are the exception, not the rule.
Etcetera. AFAICS what this article is getting at is simply "do more of what you enjoy"
Not to say there aren't people who do truly want to do that and find that a good use of their time (like if they work a stressful job and only want to relax and zone out during their free time). But a lot of people find themselves endlessly procrastinating or doing things which brings them very little joy and yet which they can't seem to break away from. Same goes for drug addiction, and any other addiction, really.
It’s like saying: I’m out on a hike, and I think I see a mountain lion. But most human-cat encounters are with housecats, so I can safely assume this is probably a housecat.
No. You need to look at specifics and find a classifier regime which is appropriate for the information available to you.
Absent all other information, the logical thing is not to say “I’m probably not doing anything worthwhile” the logical thing is to say “I don’t know how worthwhile this is”.